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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Kamla promises to create a steelpan factory in T&T

by

Radhica De Silva
931 days ago
20220801
UNC Political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is greeted by Wake Ife Assembly drummer Richard Lewis on her arrival at the Southern Marine Pan Theatre’s Emancipation Day celebrations, Southern Main Road, Marabella.

UNC Political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is greeted by Wake Ife Assembly drummer Richard Lewis on her arrival at the Southern Marine Pan Theatre’s Emancipation Day celebrations, Southern Main Road, Marabella.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

 

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she will cre­ate a pan fac­to­ry in T&T when she re­turns as Prime Min­is­ter.

Speak­ing at Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions held at South­ern Marines Pan The­atre at the Mara­bel­la Train­line on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was re­gret­table that T&T in­vent­ed the steel­pan but does not sell the in­stru­ment.

“If you want to buy a steel­pan right now you have to go to Japan to buy one. You think that is right?” she ques­tioned.

Say­ing she planned to work close­ly with Pantrin­ba­go to ex­pand steel­pan ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “The pan in schools pro­gramme was one way that my gov­ern­ment recog­nised the Steel­pan Move­ment. On our re­turn, we shall work close­ly with Pan Trin­ba­go to ex­pand this pro­gramme to in­clude the steel­pan fa­cil­i­ties in our com­mu­ni­ties that con­tin­ue to work with our youth.”

Not­ing that it was time that T&T made steel­pan in­to a rev­enue earn­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “We cre­at­ed the steel­pan. We must take it back in­to State own­er­ship and set up a fac­to­ry which can be a rev­enue earn­er for this coun­try. When we re­turn to Of­fice we will do it to­geth­er.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so paid trib­ute to the South­ern Marines Pan The­atre for its role in teach­ing pupils to play the steel­pan.

“I wish to ho­n­our the mem­o­ry of Mr Michael Joseph al­so known as Mr Sco­bie, who was the band­leader un­til he joined his an­ces­tors af­ter lead­ing the band in the last Panora­ma. His lega­cy is alive and well in his chil­dren and grand­chil­dren. I saw his grand­son Malakai per­form ex­pert­ly on the steel­pan to­day,” she added.

Stand­ing in a pa­n­yard, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “The steel­pan rep­re­sents the in­no­va­tion, lead­er­ship and con­nec­tion of the Africans to their roots. Af­ter eman­ci­pa­tion was won, the colo­nial pow­ers main­tained a ban on the African drum.

“It was the cre­ativ­i­ty and the will to re­sist com­bined that pro­duced what would be Trinidad and To­ba­go’s gift to the world, even­tu­al­ly be­com­ing our na­tion­al in­stru­ment,” she ex­plained.

She not­ed that the South­ern Ma­rine Pan The­atre has con­tin­ued to be a cen­tre of learn­ing and should be com­mend­ed. 

“I have been in­formed that it was un­der a pre­vi­ous Pan­day gov­ern­ment that much sup­port was ren­dered to erect this struc­ture, and I as­sure you that the ed­u­ca­tion of our chil­dren that con­tin­ues here is not un­no­ticed,” she said.

She added: “The steel­pan fra­ter­ni­ty is full of un­sung he­roes like the band­leader present to­day Mal­o­mo Joseph. You take chil­dren on the va­ca­tion and from your pock­et at your own ex­pense, you train them in pan mak­ing, cre­at­ing a vir­tu­al pan fac­to­ry. You train the chil­dren to play the steel­pan pro­vid­ing an av­enue of in­come for your young charges and giv­ing them a ca­reer start.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said mem­bers of the UNC who are Or­isha or Ifa devo­tees have re­mind­ed her that Ogun is the Or­isha de­ity at­trib­ut­able to ma­nip­u­lat­ing met­al. 

“There­fore, in this pa­n­yard, we are not on­ly in a place of won­der­ful in­no­va­tion, but we are al­so in a sa­cred space for Africans who pre­served their be­lief sys­tem,” she said. 

She paid trib­ute to promi­nent Afro-Trinida­di­ans of the past in­clud­ing El­ma Fran­cois, Em­manuel Muzum­bo Lazare, Hen­ry Sylvester-Williams and George Pad­more who was in­volved in the Pan African­ism move­ment which was an at­tempt to cre­ate a sense of broth­er­hood and col­lab­o­ra­tion among all peo­ple of African de­scent whether they lived in­side or out­side of Africa.

Al­so at­tend­ing the cel­e­bra­tions were Kasala Ka­ma­ra, founder of the San­do Ed­u­ca­tion­al Work­shop, and Aiye­goro Ome, founder of the Sin­hue Cen­tre and for­mer pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC).


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